After the Ball is the story of the dramatic events of 1905, when James Hazen Hyde, the flamboyant young heir to the majority shares in the billion-dollar Equitable Life Assurance Society, became the central figure in the most far-reaching financial scandal of the era. The catalyst was the Hyde Ball, an opulent 18th century costume party, which Hyde’s mentor falsely accused him of charging to their company. For one fascinating year, James Hyde’s story riveted millions of Americans, and commanded 115 front-page stories in the New York Times alone. The revelations dug deep into the secrets of Wall Street, opening a window to financial chicanery that is shockingly familiar a century later. This tale of fathers and sons; love, trust, and betrayal unfolds against a setting of magnificent excess, and draws in the most famous tycoons and politicians of the era- J.P. Morgan, E. H. Harriman, Henry Clay Frick, and President Theodore Roosevelt. In the aftermath of a widely publicized government investigation, Hyde fled to a long, luxurious exile in Paris, met his nemesis one more time on camelback at the Pyramids, married three extraordinary women, and when the Nazis invaded France, at last returned to New York after thirty-five years abroad.